While I was in Cologne, Germany I met a girl who was on a four month long excursion through Europe. She had missed her connection and had to spend a night in Cologne. The hostel I was staying at had a room, which she happily took, and washed her month old dirty clothes downstairs. She was a beautiful girl with long brown hair and was covered in tattoos and scarification. I knew she was American just from looking at her. I think American girls have softer features.
We met on the balcony and I offered to show her around. We headed over to the cathedral and she told me about some of the people she has met along the way. How you can talk for hours on a train with a stranger, make a connection, and never see them again or have even asked their name. I agreed that travel is incredibly freeing in that sense. You can be who you are, say what you want and lose the rules that normally keep you in a shell back home. You know those silly rules like, the three foot rule, the don’t talk to me rule, the no kissing until the third date rule, and so on. It’s wonderful to be in a foreign land and to think to yourself that you know nothing. You don’t know anyone here and you don’t know the customs. Everything is new. This brings a wonderful sense of curiosity about life and an appreciation for even the smallest things. What was important back home, is no longer important here. There is a new source of joy that comes just from travelling.
From the cathedral we walked over to the main bridge and she told me all about what her passion is: helping others who feel helpless. I think she will make a positive impact in this world. I am sure that all of her past days of struggle and avoidance brought her to be the humanitarian she is now. After she finishes her journey across Europe, she is going back to California for a month and then to Australia for a year. While in Europe, she is hopping from city to city and not spending more than a day or two at each place. I got the feeling that she was trying to escape from something. She was stuck on this go mentality. She has planned her life for experiences of going. I thought this was interesting.
Throughout our walk, she never stopped to say how beautiful the city was or to pause to soak in the images or sounds. My guess is, it all starts to look the same after a while. I think her and I have two different journeys. I am here to experience something new and I enjoy the process slowly. I think she gets her sense of fulfillment from moving and leaving. Is one right and one wrong? No, I don’t think so. Just different. I could learn from her to be more of a risk taker and she could learn from me to slow down. You have to be pretty daring to strut a backpack and just go for four months with no real plans, no foreign language skills and no partner. Hmm, sounds tempting…
We were still talking when it was nearing 3am and a couple of Turkish boys started hassling us, so we pushed our way past them and went back to the hostel. I never saw her again after that night.
Travel Blog 